within us; but our faults and follies drove me to cynical hopelessness.
We all ended then like that. It is the highest creatures who take the
longest to mature, and are the most helpless during their immaturity. I
know now that it took me a whole century to grow up. I began my serious
life when I was a hundred and twenty. Asiatics cannot control me: I am
not a child in their hands, as you are, Mr President. Neither, I am
sure, is the Archbishop. They respect me. You are not grown up enough
even for that, though you were kind enough to say that I frighten you.

BURGE-LUBIN. Honestly, you do. And will you think me very rude if I
say that if I must choose between a white woman old enough to be my
great-grandmother and a black woman of my own age, I shall probably find
the black woman more sympathetic?

MRS LUTESTRING. And more attractive in color, perhaps?

BURGE-LUBIN. Yes. Since you ask me, more--well, not more attractive:
I do not deny that you have an excellent appearance--but I will say,
richer. More Venetian. Tropical. 'The shadowed livery of the burnished
sun.'

MRS LUTESTRING. Our women, and their favorite story writers, begin
already to talk about men with golden complexions.

CONFUCIUS [_expanding into a smile all across both face and body_]
A-a-a-a-a-h!

BURGE-LUBIN. Well, what of it, madam? Have you read a very interesting
book by the librarian of the Biological Society suggesting that the
future of the world lies with the Mulatto?